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Month: September 2014

So your exam is this coming Wednesday, 24 September 2014. It’s in the regular classroom at the regular classtime, and you’ll be with all the regular classfolks. I’m pretty excited about it. You should be, too!

I’ve posted a practice exam in the Documents tab. Go over and take a looksee. The solutions are there, too, but don’t look at those until you’ve done the exam, obviously. If you do, I’ll be really steamed, and you don’t want to push me because I’m close to the edge. I’m trying not to lose my head.

Check the syllabus for all the regularly scheduled office hours next week; I’ll also be available for help right after class on Monday. I think I’m going to see if one of the classrooms on the 4th floor of the library (e.g. W4550, or one of the others in that hallway) is empty so we can use it; otherwise it’ll be an al fresco session, because I love nature and the cool air of a new autumn.

I know what you’re thinking: “Yo teach, André Derain was the co-founder of Fauvism, where was the love for him in that last email?” Listen, Derain’s Fauvist work was dope, there’s no denying. Check that London groove

Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906

Makin’ it real funky. But then after a few years he shut down the Fauve factory and started getting all into the Old Masters and making regular-looking paintings with like Browns and Greys

Window on the Park, 1912

and I’m just like ugh dude what happened, you used to be so chill, we used to get baked and listen to Oneohtrix Point Never together and now you just want to talk about ballet and drink cognac. And you know, I guess that’s cool and I ain’t mad atcha and now that I think about it some of these new joints are actually pretty fresh

Still Life, 1914

but then hold up what happens next? You go off to Nazi Germany and tour around like everything is normal there, like they’re just a regular old country not one trying its hand at world domination and also committing some of the worst atrocities ever conceived. That’s wack of you, André. Maximal prop deduction.

Your next assignment is now posted in the usual place. It’s due a week from today (i.e., 24 September 2014) at the beginning of class. Don’t forget you have an exam that day, too. Also don’t forget that it’s Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday. Go read Babylon Revisited, or at least drink some gin.

Probably wouldn’t hurt you to eat some Selles-sur-Cher, too.

Unless you’re lactose intolerant, I guess.

University is important, but for some people a nontraditional learning experience is preferable:

“If they ever come up with a swashbuckling school, I think one of the courses should be Laughing, Then Jumping Off Something.

Your next homework assignment has been hanging around in the Assignments tab since the afternoon. It’s due Wednesday September 10th at the beginning of class. Very smooth.

If you’re an art critic and you want to become famous, first of all you need to slow down a second because, as Anton Ego notes in Ratatouille, “in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than [your] criticism designating it so“. If you look hard at yourself in the mirror and the itch remains, then what you need to do is find some unknown homie or homette (or group thereof) who is killing the game in new and exciting ways, start the hype locomotive and ride it all the way to Fametown, choo choo. You’ll be forever known as the critic who championed this great artist when he was just a neckbearded nobody weaving tapestries in his loft. (In this scenario your discovery is successful in bringing back tapestries as a thing people care about. Just go with it.)